Jewish Studies

"It gives me a secret pleasure to observe the fair character our family has in the place by Jews & Christians,"Abigail Levy Franks wrote to her son from New York City in 1733. Abigail was part of a tiny community of Jews living in the new world. In the centuries that followed, as that community swelled to several millions, women came to occupy diverse and changing roles.

The last decades have seen a growing debate over the status of women in contemporary Judaism. As the conditions of secular Western life have allowed women greater choice in their educational and vocational opportunities and society has begun to endorse female equality with men, dissatisfaction with traditional Jewish limitations on women's participation in communal, religious, and scholarly activities has increased. Whilst there have been numerous contemporary responses to traditional Jewish views of women's roles, perspectives from the past have been missing from the ongoing discussion. This collection of essays is intended to provide such a historical excursion. Each essay provides an overview of the period in question, and asks serious questions about the general situations of Jewish women and their activities in a male-dominated public and intellectual Jewish life, as well as in a larger non-Jewish cultural environment.

A history and celebration of Jewish women through the centuries.

This is an indispensable resource about the role of Jewish women from post-biblical times to the twentieth century. Unique in its approach, it is structured so that each chapter, which is divided into three parts, covers a specific period and geographical area.